Once an article of clothing is manufactured the garment may have to be shipped a considerable distance by land, sea or air to the retail outlet. In the course of shipment the garments or the containers may be handled many times during the distribution process and may be exposed to wide variations in temperature and humidity. A preferred way to ship garments is to ship them on hangers from the factory. This is known as "Garments On Hangers" or "GOH" shipping. This has the advantage of reducing the wrinkling of the garments as well as reducing the number of times a garment must be handled where it is ultimately to be displayed on a hanger at the retail outlet.
GOH has contined to receive escalating attention for two basic reasons:
1. The cost of "flat pack" or packing garments flat into corrugated containers has risen dramatically, and
2. The cost of labor to stem and press, if necessary, and place on hangers for sizing, marking and pricing and final distribution, is going up.
In order to keep costs down, the less the garment is handled, the less costly the product will be.
Today shipping lines are faced with decisions on whether to specially outfit large containers, commonly called ocean containers, for GOH which is very costly. This makes the equipment specialized, putting severe logistical restraints on the ocean containers since it must travel between two points only--origin and destination--and cannot be used in system-wide trade like other standard shipping containers.
If a shipping line decides not to invest in permanent GOH ocean containers, their alternative is to temporarily alter a standard ocean container to a GOH ocean container by subcontracting for the installation of temporary rigging. A difficulty with this process is that it is expensive to set up the rigging and it must be then removed at the end of the voyage so that the ocean container can be utilized for other types of cargo. Rigging an ocean container can range in cost from $700.00 in Hong Kong per forty-foot ocean container to $900.00 per forty-foot ocean container in Taiwan.
Many times this rigging is discarded at its destination which allows the ocean containers to again be utilized system-wide in its standard mode. Because of these considerations, both operationally and economically, shipping lines have discouraged the marketing of Garment On Hangers (GOH).
Another alternative has been to use specially designed containers which contain racks for receiving the hangers. These are smaller containers which are then loaded within the twenty foot or forty foot standard ocean containers. The problem with this type of container is that it is rather expensive. Further in many cases it is not collapsible or is only partially collapsible when shipped to its initial point of use. Also it is generally too expensive to return the container empty for another load.